


First pleasure. Just a little pinch.

by FrailFonts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrailFonts/pseuds/FrailFonts
Summary: Steve is going back in time to be with Peggy. But, first, he and Bucky have one night to say goodbye. To say all the things they've left unsaid.This story contains a very light mentions of rape that happened in the past. It happens entirely off screen and is not described in any detail but I'd rather mention it than have someone be taken by surprise.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	First pleasure. Just a little pinch.

Bucky moved down the hallway on silent feet. He could feel the shadows pulling across him, sinking him deeper into darkness, almost with a will of their own. Subconsciously he shifted his weight, the old tension and reflex of the Winter Soldier creeping up his spine. Bucky shuddered and shook his head. The moment passed, the impulse no more than a memory now 

Steve sat on the edge of his bed, immaculately packed rucksack between his feet, head bowed. Bucky would have thought he was praying if he hadn't known better. 

Hell maybe he was. 

"Hey Buck," Steve said after a moment. 

Bucky leaned against the door frame. 

"You're really going to do it."

It wasn't a question but Steve nodded, rubbing his hands together. He looked old. Much older than a super soldier should have aged in a few years. 

"Do you think I shouldn't?"

Bucky's heart ached. He knew that feeling. It wasn't just tired. It was exhaustion of the soul, the weight of responsibility carried too long. The pain of a thousand failures and the crushing, endless sense of duty.

“Hell no,” Bucky said. “You should absolutely do it.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. 

“Splintering time. Creating a new time stream. Maybe I shouldn’t do that just for me.”

Bucky shrugged. 

“They’ll have Captain America to look after them. How much trouble can they get in?”

Steve scoffed and a genuine smile flashed across his face. There was a long moment of silence. Steve stretched and rolled his head.

“I’m going to miss you, Buck,” he said finally. “Are you going to be ok?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Believe it or not, Cap, I don’t need you to hold my hand every second.” 

Steve smiled again but this time the sadness lingered. Bucky crossed the room and sat on the bed beside him. He rested a hand on Steve’s knee with an old familiarity that surprised him. He shot a glance at Steve out of the corner of his eye but the man gave him no notice he found it unusual or bold. In fact, Steve took his hand in return, casually, almost absentmindedly, without so much as looking at him.

Bucky’s heart pounded in his chest. These moments were fewer now. The times where memories welled up and surprised him, where he could almost grasp the person he was before Hydra but felt like a stranger in his own body. He closed his eyes, trying to hold on to the idea that once he had been someone who could touch with so little thought.

“You with me, Buck?”

Steve had that little crease between his eyes he got when he was worried. Bucky took a slow breath.

“I’m going to miss you, too.” 

Steve's face folded into a smile that looked more like a grimace. He softly brushed Bucky's hair back. Bucky wondered if he was trembling. His heart was beating a weird choking rhythm.

Blue eyes met brown and for a long, endless moment nothing else existed. It was the two of them and an instant where the whole world was waiting to inhale.

It was the first step out of the plane as you parachuted into a war zone. It was the rattle of thunder in your bones as you were soaked by a warm summer rain. It was the first breath of oxygen after you broke to the surface. 

They broke apart but Bucky didn't give Steve a chance to move away. He laid back, dragging Steve with him, pulling him on top and into another kiss. 

Steve answered, his hands moving to Bucky's chest, making quick work of the buttons. 

And suddenly the race was on. It was a blur of hands and bodies almost too dexterous to be human. The fabric of Bucky's shirt crumpled where flesh met metal. Steve grunted impatiently and, in one move, ripped it free. 

Bucky stared at the shredded fabric before looking dully up at Steve. 

"Thank God you took the time to undo the buttons," he said. 

Laughter tightened Steve's lips and slowly he let it out. It was a breathless sound. Rusty. Out of use.

Their eyes met again. Steve hooked one finger under Bucky's ear and traced up the line of Bucky's jaw. A shudder ran the entire length of Bucky's body making his breath hitch and his toes curl. 

Steve moved to pull away but Bucky grabbed his wrist. He held on maybe tighter than was necessary, maybe even tighter than he should, but if Steve noticed he gave no sign.

Bucky forced himself to go slow, not to rush. This time, above any other, he wanted to remember. 

The muscles in Steve's back quivered under Bucky's touch. His breath made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a moan. Bucky moved into Steve's chest, slowly exploring down the man's body, nuzzling his ear. 

Bucky didn't even notice the moment Steve started to touch him. He had been afraid that touch against his bare skin would trigger something, bring him to a place he desperately didn't want to go but all of a sudden he was wrapped in Steve's arms and nothing had ever been more natural or more like home. 

Steve's hand snaked into Bucky's hair. He pulled Bucky's head back to claim his lips in a kiss. He nuzzled his nose into the scruff of Bucky's beard. 

The hand at Bucky's head kept his body bent into a soft bow, allowing Steve's lips to explore at leisure. Bucky's breath came in soft gasps. His hands groped for whatever bits of Steve he could touch. 

A warm mouth found Bucky's nipple and his body writhed with a force that would have sent a normal man across the room. Steve smiled.

Bucky took the moment of distraction and hooked Steve under the jaw, dragging the man up to capture that perfect bow of a mouth in another kiss. He could feel the heat of Steve’s straining member pressing against his hip and he ground his own need against it. Steve moaned, his eyes fluttering and his jaw momentarily going slack.

Bucky sucked Steve’s tongue like he was trying to swallow it, pulling the man tighter to him and flipping their bodies. In one easy roll he was on top, triumphantly straddling Steve’s hips. Bucky smirked. 

“It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to do that,” he said. 

Stever wrapped his strong, calloused hands around Bucky’s waist. His eyes burned up at Bucky. 

“Decades,” he said.

A shiver ran down Bucky’s spine and goosebumps erupted on his flesh. He threw himself on Steve, ripping the belt free, jerking his pants down to reveal his throbbing cock, those first few inches of muscular thigh. Steve responded with the same madness, sliding his hands down the back of Bucky’s pants, cupping his ass, working one hand between his legs to just brush his balls from behind. 

Both arched and gasped, trying to touch more without being touched less. Bucky grunted in frustration and moved away to strip off his pants. Steve followed suit and in seconds it was done. They stared at each, breath heavy in a way that had nothing to do with exertion. 

Bucky pushed Steve down onto the bed, climbing atop him again, nothing between their overheated skin. He could feel Steve against him. He slid back, taking both their cocks in hand and stroking them together.

Steve’s back arched off the bed, his eyes fluttered and he punched the wall. The sheetrock crumpled leaving a gaping hole. Bucky snorted but Steve didn’t seem to notice. He looked at Bucky with a fever that made his body give its own involuntary shudder. 

Their tongues tangled in one another, Steve’s teeth just brushing Bucky’s lower lip. Steve’s hands ran across Bucky’s chest, tweaking his nipples, brushing the curve of his hips, tracing the muscle of his thigh. Bucky kept pumping them, a driving pace causing his joints to feel loose in their sockets and his vision to go soft around the edges. 

Bucky bent his body up as Steve slid a finger into him, his spine curving back into a tight curl, his lungs suddenly refusing to draw air. Panic struck him, The blood froze in his veins. He could feel his body turning to the cruel, mindless strength of the Winter Soldier. He felt every muscle clench, ratcheting to a dangerously tight coil as he prepared to fight the towing undercurrent of dark, blank, emptiness.

But it was just Steve.

And as quickly as it had taken hold, it was gone. And all that he felt was the warmth of Steve’s hands on his body. Steve. Before them there had been Steve and now after. He felt his cheeks burn with color and a fresh wave of need and desire made him tremble.

“Fuck me,” he said. He raked his fingers down Steve’s chest and ground their hips together. “I want you to fuck me until I forget anyone else.”

Steve’s moan was cut short. He gently touched Bucky’s jaw, his face creasing in worry. 

“Anyone else?” he whispered. 

Damn Steve. Damn him for still listening when Bucky was squirming naked a top him. Damn himself for saying it, stupidly, carelessly. Bucky turned his face away, hoping the moment would pass and Steve would move underneath him and they could _be._

Bucky fought desperately against the memories of those months of his captivity where it had been HYDRA’s goal to dehumanize him. To break him. To take him apart so thoroughly there was nothing left when they laid down their obedience matrix for the Winter Soldier. 

“Buck,” Steve said. His voice was filled with so much emotion that Bucky couldn’t bear to hear it. “Did--Did they--”

_Rape you._

Bucky put his hand against Steve’s lips before he could work up the nerve to say it. Metal against flesh. Machine against man.

_Inhuman._

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. 

Steve sat up, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist, pressing his face into Bucky’s chest.

“Of course it matters,” he said.

Bucky ran his fingers through Steve’s hair.

_Resist._

Of course, these had been some of the first memories to return after Steve and Zuri had given him back his mind. 

He pressed closer to Steve. Trying desperately to not to think of the way they had been on him, against him, inside him. Of the beatings and the pain and the starvation and the utter humiliation and the knowledge that it worked. That he broke and submitted and _let them._

Bucky knew he was holding Steve too tight, a grip that must feel bruising even to Captain America, but was incapable of relaxing. He focused on the warm grip of Steve’s arms around his waist, burying his face in the man’s hair. 

Somehow the scent of Steve was the same as it had always been. It was the same as it had been when they were teenagers, secluding themselves in Bucky’s bedroom, gambling kisses in the middle of the night, sneaking glances at one another any time they dared. Back when their biggest fear was that someone might _find out._

The same as it had been as they marched through Europe. When the Howling Commandos would scoff and tease them mercilessly before clapping their hands on Bucky’s shoulders and leaving him to Steve’s embrace every night. 

Decades ago. 

But it had always been Steve.

Bucky swallowed the memories. Put them away like they didn’t matter. 

“You leave in the morning,” Bucky said into Steve’s hair. “If I only get tonight, I’d rather the memory of you than the memory of what they did.”

Steve stroked Bucky’s hair softly. 

“I always thought we’d have more time,” Steve said. “I always thought we’d sit down and tell each other everything, know everything, the way we used to.”

Bucky tried to snuggle closer even though Steve was already holding him so tightly their bones were grinding together. Steve kissed Bucky’s cheek and Bucky tipped his chin enough to catch Steve’s lips. 

They kissed, long and slow and not with lust but with tenderness and familiarity. Finally they broke apart again, foreheads resting together. 

“For two guys who have been alive 100 years we never had much time,” Steve said quietly. 

He gently laid Bucky back on the bed. They kissed gently again; Steve ran his hand down Bucky’s side.

Bucky groaned in frustration. He didn't want to see Steve's face wrinkle in worry or feel him holding back or know he was _thinking_ instead of _doing._ He dragged Steve down, grinding their bodies together.

Steve shuddered at the touch. His breath hitched in his chest. 

“Buck,” he said. “Are you sure?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. He made the sign of the cross over Steve in mockery.

“I absolve you of your guilt,” he said. “You are now free to join me in this act of sin.”

Steve snorted. “That mouth of yours,” he said. He stroked Bucky’s hair again, tucking it behind his ear. 

“I remember some other things you could do with that mouth.”

Bucky growled. He slid down Steve’s body like a snake, pushing his way between those muscular thighs, trailing kisses as he went. He licked a stripe along Steve’s balls, teasing the soft flesh before sucking it into his mouth. Steve arched, trying to press against Bucky, his erection springing back to full attention. 

Bucky gripped Steve’s hip, pinning him to the bed with force. He continued nuzzling and kissing the tender skin. Steve reached down to tangle his hand in Bucky’s hair, trying to guide him toward his straining cock. Bucky nipped the inside of Steve’s thigh in warning. 

Steve huffed in frustration but obediently put his hands above his head. Bucky indulged in torturing Steve for a few moments longer before he relented. Suddenly and all at once, he took Steve whole, letting his tongue swirl around the head. 

There was an audible creaking noise as Steve braced his hands, in danger of ripping through the drywall with the flex of his fingers. Bucky huffed out a laugh which made Steve tremor again. 

“If you put any more holes in the wall Pepper is gonna kill you,” Bucky said. 

Steve raised his head to meet Bucky’s eye. 

“Not me,” he said. His eyes glinted with mischief. “I can cause all the property damage I want and I’ll be gone before they even notice. That’s on you, Buck.”

Bucky growled and snapped his teeth at Steve’s thigh. Steve laughed and dodged out of the way easily. A small scuffle ensued. A scuffle of hands and mouths and skin that somehow ended with Steve between Bucky’s legs, languidly teasing Bucky’s cock with this mouth. 

Bucky couldn’t quite work out if he had won or lost, though Steve looked awfully pleased with himself. Bucky propped himself up on his elbows, shifting his hips ever so slightly, letting the sensation of Steve’s mouth wash over him.

“You’re out of practice, Cap,” he said but was a slight breathless note to his voice that betrayed him.

Steve snorted. He slowly drew Bucky in once more, burying his nose at the root of Bucky’s cock. It was almost in slow motion. Steve’s cheeks hollowed and his jaw set with more purpose and those beautiful lips set Bucky on fire. 

And Bucky could nearly, almost remember a time when he had been happy to be consumed. He could nearly grasp that surrender had once been a game they played, passing it back and forth without guile, without hesitation. He could breathe the vapor of someone who had once plunged willingly into the dark.

Steve’s tongue swirled. His lips glided. His powerful shoulders flexed and his fingers caressed into Bucky’s thighs. It drove Bucky on, every second pushing him closer to the edge. He could feel his heart pounding, hammering out a beat in opposition to the ripples Steve was causing at his core, the cadence of it nearly driving him mad.

The sound of Steve’s laughter shook Bucky back to reality. Steve rested his head on Bucky’s thigh staring at him pointedly.The metal fingers had torn deep into the mattress, burying his hand nearly to the wrist. Bucky whipped his hand away. That made Steve laugh again and Bucky felt a smile turn his lips in reply.

He sat up, forcing Steve to do the same. He knew he must look crazy. He could feel the intensity of his eyes, the flush of his overheated skin, the ragged draw of his breath but Steve didn’t back away. 

Bucky drew Steve into a kiss. He could taste the salt of his own need in the man’s mouth and it somehow, impossibly, made him more desperate. He pulled Steve to him more sharply. Their tongues tangled again. Vaguely Bucky registered the sound of his metal arm reticulating and knew he was holding on too tight, that he should relax and force himself to let go but he couldn’t because Steve’s hands were like vice grips on his arms.

Bucky blinked.

Once Steve had been the little one. He could remember the terror of being too rough for his weak heart or triggering that horrible hacking cough. That cough had been the scariest sound he could imagine in those days. Then those nights in the forests and fields of Europe when Bucky thought his back would break under the force of Steve's passion. Bucky had woken up sore and with the occasional bruise and blessed every single pain while Steve stammered apologies.

But now. 

Finally. 

Two bodies perfectly suited to each other in passion, in strength, in need _._ Two bodies made to meet each other in ways that their creators never imagined, never dreamed. The thought made Bucky dizzy and he could see the same beautiful realization burning in Steve’s eyes.

Steve kissed him again. Then turned at the waist--making his body twist into an unspeakably gorgeous arch--to dig in the drawer beside his bed. He turned back sheepishly tucking something surreptitiously into Bucky’s hand. Vaseline. Bucky arched an eyebrow, grinning as Steve's ears turned red. 

Captain America. Shy.

He was the same Steve he had always been.

Bucky placed a soft kiss to the inside of Steve's wrist before pressing the lube back into his hand. 

_The same Bucky,_ he prayed. _Please let me be the Bucky he remembers._

Bucky leaned in to whisper into Steve’s ear.

“I meant what I said,” he breathed. “I want you to fuck me, and I don’t want you to hold back.”

Steve swallowed hard and Bucky watched goosebumps rise all along his body. .

“Language,” Steve said, his voice hoarse. It was almost absentminded and without any real commitment. Bucky wanted to laugh but the way Steve was looking at him had turned all of the muscles in his core to jelly. 

Steve popped the jar open and Bucky felt his whole body quiver. Steve kissed him softly, gently but Bucky sucked his tongue and began a plundering Steve’s mouth, tempting him, challenging him to do the same. Steve responded, dragging Bucky’s hips until they were both kneeling, bodies pressed together. 

Bucky didn’t want tenderness. He wanted to test his strength against Captain America.

This time when Steve’s finger teased into Bucky he was ready. He pressed his body more tightly to Steve moaning softly into his ear. Steve slowly teased Bucky open with maddening tenderness. Bucky ground their hips together, tangling their hard flesh, pressing it between their bodies. The small involuntary sounds Steve made in the back of his throat drove Bucky so wild with need that his vision danced.

Finally Bucky couldn’t take it any longer. He shoved Steve back onto the bed and climbed on top of him greedily, trying to place himself on Steve and take him in. Steve was lighting fast. His hands were around Bucky’s waist before his back hit the mattress, foiling his attempt at a forcible takeover. 

Steve, ever so carefully, aligned their bodies but he didn’t have the strength or the leverage to stop Bucky from pressing them together in one quick movement. Steve’s eyes fluttered and a grunt of ecstacy escaped his lips. 

Bucky gasped as his body separated too quickly.But even the fleeting pain was euphoric. It was his. His choice. His desire. His Steve.

And even though Bucky knew his super soldier body would heal fresh each time the bloom of pain in his back made him feel like Steve was touching a part of him that no one else had. It gave him back something that he knew had been ripped away, even if he couldn’t remember why it meant so much. 

“Steve,” Bucky moaned softly. He arched his back, slowly sliding his hips from side to side until the movement made him vibrate in anticipation.Then Steve’s hands were at his waist again and they were moving at an impossibly frantic pace, pounding at against one another, fingers finding the taut peaks of nipples. Bucky was vaguely aware of the screaming sound of furniture but registered it as completely immaterial and unimportant.

They went on. For how long Bucky had no idea.

Suddenly Steve grabbed Bucky with a growl, throwing him onto his back and mounting him, the last vestige of restraint discarded. Bucky hooked his legs around Steve’s back and pulled the man into a heavy kiss. Bucky’s reached around, teasing a finger against Steve’s entrance, just a tease. Steve moaned. At some point Steve’s found Bucky’s cock and their bodies danced against each other with another, even higher level of recklessness.

Bucky here the rasp of his own voice though it sounded as it were coming from far away, outside himself. Yes, yes, Steve. More. 

And somehow, still, Steve complied. Bucky rocked along, jerking his hips in manic motions, muscles screaming with strain, both their bodies coated in sweat.

And then it ended. Bucky came, his cum splattered Steve’s chest and an instant later he felt Steve climax inside. They both fell back into the bed, panting for breath, floating on a sea near delirium. 

“You won’t be able to do that with Peggy,” Bucky said.

Steve laughed and pulled Bucky back against his chest. He rained kisses across Bucky’s shoulders and down the seam where metal met skin. Bucky shivered. 

“No,” Steve said, still a little breathless. “No I will not.”

But he said it with such tenderness that Bucky knew it wasn’t a slight to her. A pang of jealousy flared in Bucky but it faded quickly, as he knew it would. With Peggy, Steve had a chance for a completely different future. A family. Kids. A world of things Bucky could never have offered him, even before Hydra had melted his brain into pudding. 

They had loved each other with the pure, simple affection that was so central to who Steve was. She could offer him the life he had missed. All that this world could offer was the cold reminder of failure and regret.

And a broken lover with half a memory.

So Bucky just hugged Steve a little tighter, and held on to him while he could.

“I’m going to miss you, Steve,” he allowed himself to say. “I’m going to miss so much.”

Steve stroked Bucky’s hair.

“Bucky, come with me,” he said. 

Bucky went very still. He had been dreading this moment, when he’d have to find out if he had the strength. He’d hoped maybe it wouldn’t come at all and that the burden would pass over him completely. But here it was. He swallowed. Strangely he was also glad to hear Steve say it. As much as it hurt he had needed Steve to ask. He needed to know it wasn’t just pity and obligation to a memory.

He swallowed again in an attempt to unstick his throat and pressed a soft kiss against Steve’s chest.

“There’s no life for us back there,” Bucky said. “I know you remember what it was like.” 

Steve tightened his arms around Bucky and made a noise like he would deny it but his forehead crinkled and he looked away.

“Peggy always knew,” he said. “She knew and she understood that I could love you both. That I needed you both… Do you remember her, Buck?”

Steve turned to look at the woman smiling from the photo on his bedside table and Bucky followed his gaze.

_Peggy leaned in. Her red lips brushed Bucky’s cheek as he leaned out of the door of the train car._

_“You keep him safe out there,” she whispered. “And I’ll keep you both safe when you come home.”_

_Before Bucky could respond the whistle blew and the train started to pull away. She winked one of those big brown eyes at him and all Bucky could do was wink in return._

_“What did she say?” Steve said. He leaned out of the car, trying to give a nonchalant wave in that ridiculous uniform._

_Bucky felt his mouth spread into a cocky grin. He clapped Steve on the shoulder._

_“That,” he said, “is a hell of a woman.”_

Bucky could feel the beginning of the cascade that often accompanied a new memory like this. A backward slide through everything he had reclaimed, a compulsive hammering and ironing of every detail to see if it would fit, to verify its truth, to work it’s edges into everything else he had learned. 

His heart pounded and he had to blink tears from his eyes. 

This was a good memory. It lacked the bright surgery lights and the twisted metal instruments or the dark, damp hole and the gnawing rats or the probing fingers and the noise of his own wretched screams.

He had been happy. He had laughed. 

So why did it feel like his chest had been cracked while his heart was still beating?

“Bucky?” 

He could hear the worry in Steve’s voice. He closed his eyes and physically shook himself from the memory.

“One, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-sev, no. Twenty-nine.” Bucky took a deep breath. It was hope. He didn’t want to know that there had ever been hope for them. That he had the option of pretending there was hope now.

It wasn’t his hope to hold on to.

“She was a hell of a woman, Steve,” he said. “A hell of a woman.” 

Steve’s warm hands ran up and down Bucky’s spine.

“She was.”

They looked at each other and exchanged a soft kiss.

“Prime numbers,” Steve said. “Did Sam teach you that?”

Bucky nodded. 

“How’d you guess?”

Steve stretched out his arms, palms up.

“Thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three. It’s stupid but it helps.”

Bucky snorted. They lay silent for a long few moments, wrapped in each other’s arms.

“Please come, Buck,” Steve said finally. 

Bucky got up slowly and sat straddling Steve’s chest. He lifted Steve’s arms above his head and pinned them gently against the mattress. Steve stared up at him, blue eyes bright.

“I can’t,” Bucky said. It cost him something, but he made himself say it. 

Steve started to protest but Bucky silenced him with a kiss. 

“I have work to do here,” Bucky said, leaning his body over Steve. “The Winter Soldier did--I did--a lot of awful things. Most of them I can’t even remember.”

“Bucky,” Steve said. “That’s not-”

“It is. It is my fault,” Bucky cut in. He kissed Steve gently. “Steve, I did those things. I can feel the blood on my hands.” 

He held them out like he might be able to see it. Steve grabbed them and kissed each palm, one flesh, one metal

“There’s still a lot of people who need protecting, who need help,” Bucky said. “If I can do that… maybe I can atone for some of the hurt I’ve caused.”

Steve pulled Bucky in until their foreheads rested together. Bucky knew he understood, even if he didn’t like it.

“You’ve done your work here, Steve. You can go home,” Bucky said. He could feel his voice beginning to crack. “But that’s not my life.”

That was the closest Bucky could bring himself to acknowledging it, to even thinking of it. In the new timeline, there would be another Bucky. A Bucky Steve knew was still alive, a Bucky who might have his prayers answered and one day see the silhouette of Captain America in the door to his cage. There was a Bucky who would get to dance at Steve and Peggy’s wedding and hold Steve’s children on his knee and maybe, just maybe, share in the promise of that wink. 

There was a Bucky who would get to keep Steve. But it would never be him.

“Bucky,” Steve said.

Tears splashed out of Bucky’s eyes and trailed down Steve’s cheek.

“Don’t,” Bucky whispered. “Please don’t. Just have a _wonderful_ life.”

Steve nodded silently and crushed their bodies together, eyelashes wet and shoulders trembling.

They stayed like that for hours. Tucked tightly against one another like they could stay that way forever. But when Bucky finally opened his eyes he knew he knew if he stayed any longer he might never leave. He sat up. Perhaps the hardest motion he’d made in his life.

“I’ll bring you my shield. This afternoon, when I meet you by the lake.”

Bucky turned to look at Steve, puzzled.

“It’s damn useful,” Steve said. “And I think it might do people good to see it around again.”

Bucky shook his head.

“Steve I can’t be Captain America,” he said.

Steve sat up, his brow furrowed. He looked hurt. Bucky cupped his cheek in his hand.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said. “I wish I could. People need the Captain now more than ever… but I can’t.”

Steve traced one hand down the muscle of Bucky’s remaining arm.

“Of course you can,” he said. “Buck, if there’s anyone who could do it, it’s you.”

Bucky let out a sad laugh and patted Steve’s cheek. He let his hands fall to his lap and hung his head.

“If it was just about lifting heavy things and messing people up in a fight and looking cool throwing the shield around, sure. You could sign me up right now,” Bucky said. “But Captain America is a leader. He brings people together. We need someone like that, but people will never rally around me.”

Steve rested his hand on Bucky’s knee.

“Then who?”

Bucky looked up at Steve. 

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

Worry creased Steve’s face making him look older again. He raked his finger back through his hair and shook his head. 

“Will you protect him?”

Bucky felt a spark of annoyance. He pursed his lips tightly.

“You of all people should know Sam can take care of himself, Steve,” Bucky said. “He doesn’t need protecting.”

Steve ground his palms against his eyes.

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course you’re right. But Sam is… Bucky please…”

Bucky pulled Steve’s arm away and gently kissed his forehead. 

“Of course I will help him,” Bucky said. “I’ll go where he goes. With my life, if I have to.”

Steve let his head drop to Bucky’s shoulder. They sat, both trying to savor one last moment together.

“Buck,” Steve’s voice shook Bucky out of the peaceful moment. “Before I knew you were alive. A-and when you were recovering in Wakanda, Sam and I,” Steve stumbled over his word. “We--”

Bucky turned away so Steve wouldn’t see him smile. 

“You’re about to travel back in time and bend all the rules of reality to marry someone else,” Bucky said. “I think it’s ok if we see other people.”

Steve made a frustrated noise and pushed Bucky down onto the bed, pinning him against the mattress again. 

“It’s different,” he growled. “You’re the only one I ever… It’s… It was only you Buck.”

Bucky put his hand on Steve’s face.

“It’s ok, Steve,” he said. “ I already knew about you and Sam.” 

Steve looked genuinely surprised.

“How?” he said. “We never told anyone.”

Bucky drew Steve down into a kiss and then turned to whisper into his ear. 

“Because you weren’t out of practice.”

The heat rose in Steve’s neck so fast Bucky could practically feel it singeing his skin. Steve thumped Bucky on the chest hard enough to hurt and Bucky wheezed with laughter. They kissed again, heavy and long, too desperate to hide the fact that it would be the last time.

When they finally broke apart Bucky couldn’t help but look at the grey light dawning in the window, signaling their night was at an end. Steve followed his gaze. He tangled his hand firmly in Bucky’s hair and kissed him hard, just once more, before releasing him. 

Bucky rolled to his feet, collecting his discarded clothing.

“I love you, Bucky,” Steve said.

Bucky reached back to squeeze Steve’s hand.

"I love you too," Bucky said. “But this is the end of the line.”


End file.
